13027: Charles Arthur posts: New York Newsday article 1st September 2002 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Tttnhm@aol.com

>From New York Newsday

By Letta Tayler

September 1, 2002


Port-au-Prince, Haiti - Jean-Pierre Mangonès has many fine possessions:
beautiful works of Haitian art, a lovely house set amid a profusion of
tropical plants, a jeep. But at the moment his pride and joy is the battered,
eight-gallon jug he uses to lug gasoline.

As soon as he gets home, Mangonès pours the fuel into his generator, without
which his family would have electricity for only a few hours a day because of
chronic blackouts.

Mangonès also buys two truckfuls of water each month for washing and cooking,
as his neighborhood has no water service. The phone in his house seldom
works. With crime rampant, he now owns a gun.

"If there's hell after life," Mangonès said, "then it can't be worse than
Haiti."

In the two centuries since it ousted the French and became the modern world's
first black-led republic, Haiti has maintained a two-tiered system that
separates the mass of black subsistence farmers from the tiny class of the
bourgeoisie.

Haiti's populist president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former parish priest,
has vowed to tear down that barrier. Instead of improving life for the poor,
however, many in Haiti's elite believe Aristide has mired their class in the
nation's endemic squalor. Their anger over their shift in fortune represents
a key obstacle in Aristide's ability to unify Haiti, the poorest nation, and
one of the most troubled, in the hemisphere.

"Back in 1990, I actually thought he might be a savior for this country,"
Mangonès said. "But most people in the upper-middle and upper classes hate
Aristide."

Without the support of the bourgeoisie, Aristide will need to use strongarm
tactics to retain power, following the historical path of presidents here,
according to Ken Boodhoo, a Haiti expert at Florida International University.
"It is not impossible to forge a democratic society without the Haitian
bourgeoisie," Boodhoo said, "but it's extremely difficult."

Most of the bourgeoisie supported the 1991 coup that ousted Aristide from the
presidency a year after he was elected, Boodhoo said.

Aristide was restored to power by a U.S.-led invasion in 1994 and was elected
to a second term in 2000.

Many Haiti observers believe that, politically, Aristide must remain the
enemy of the elite to retain support among the masses. "Ninety-nine percent
of the elite hate Aristide, and Aristide wouldn't have it any other way,"
said a western diplomat.

But increasing numbers of Haitians view Aristide, who grew up in the
dirt-poor countryside, as an aspiring elite. They speak bitterly of the
former radical theologian's mansion and the fact that he married into a
prominent bourgeois family.

Aristide's house isn't sumptuous by most presidential standards. But the fact
that his lifestyle has come under attack underscores the growing frustration
among the poor who have yet to see the improvements they'd expected under
Aristide.

Mangonès, 53, an art dealer and father of two, is in many ways a
quintessential member of Haiti's elite. His skin is the color of cafe au
lait. Educated in the United States, he speaks flawless English, as well as
French, Creole, Spanish and Portuguese. His great-great-grandfather, Tancrede
Auguste, was a former president who, like many who've held the top job here,
was assassinated. What sets him apart is his attitude. In 1990, he took a
chance and voted for Aristide. Many of his acquaintances dropped him as a
result.

In addition to losing friends, Mangonès lost his $250,000 art-export business
because of a U.S. trade embargo on Haiti after the 1991 coup. "A lot of
Haitians will blame Aristide," he said. "But I blame me. We squandered the
opportunity to foster a viable, alternative political party."

Many Haitian elite wax nostalgic about the 1971-86 dictatorship of
Jean-Claude Duvalier, who used the Tontons Macoutes _ thugs he inherited from
his father, the ruthless leader Francois Duvalier _ to keep order while
pandering to national and foreign businesses.

"Under Jean-Claude Duvalier you could conduct business in the quote, best
possible way, unquote," Mangonès noted sarcastically. "No crime, and no labor
unions. For the business community, it was heaven."

Mangonès' cost of living has increased tenfold under Aristide. He spends $230
a month - almost the average Haitian annual salary - just on water and on gas
for his generator. He drives a Mitsubishi Galloper jeep because the roads are
so bad they'd ruin a car with a lower carriage.

In the mid-90s, when his family started receiving death threats from
extortionists hoping for quick payoffs, he built a 15-foot-high wall around
his house in Freres, an affluent but unassuming neighborhood in hills above
the Caribbean.

Port-au-Prince's mushrooming slums are rapidly encroaching on such hillside
oases. Now, Mangonès often hears gunshots as he goes to sleep.

Still, Mangonès praises Aristide for bringing democractic freedoms to Haiti.
"Under Duvalier, I wouldn't even be sitting here criticizing the regime," he
said.
Copyright © 2002, Newsday, Inc.


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